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So what do you think of that Rocket League [official site], then? What’s that, you haven’t played it? Even though it was the RPS Best Game of 2015? Well aren’t you in luck, because Psyonix’s car-ball-cage-goal ’em up is free this weekend on Steam. Annnd a Witcher 3 crossover is in the works too, set to land alongside the free Hoops update heading our way this Tuesday. Happy Friday.

Depending on where you are in the world, Rocket League is free-of-charge until various times on Sunday. If you’re based in the PST time zone that’s 1pm. If your EST-bound that’s 4pm. And if you set your clock against Big Ben’s large and little hands that’s 9pm. If you like what you see, you can also grab Rocket League with a 40% discount until Monday April 25.

Now, crossovers. Crossover’s are Rocket League’s thing, see. Be it Batman, Dying Light, Portal, Fallout or Back to the Future, its amalgamous cross-promoting reach knows little bounds. The latest partnership sees The Witcher’s distinguished medallion-type logo thingymajig take the form of a battle-car antenna.

“Several members of the Psyonix team were big fans of The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt last year,” say Psyonix in an update. “So we talked with the awesome developers at CD Projekt Red to see if Geralt of Rivia’s iconic Witcher Medallion could make its way into Rocket League! We found the feeling was mutual.”

At a press trip a while back, I was given a chain with the same Witcher medallion-type logo thingymajig on it. In a display of abject press corruption, I use it to hang a Terminator figure from my bookshelf in what has inadvertently become my own little crossover effort. See:

Anyway, Rocket League is free on Steam until Sunday, and the Witcher Medallion Antenna rolls out with the incoming Hoops update this coming week.

19 Comments

Playing Rocket League with my friends was fun, the game is extremely easy to get into and to play. It’s highly accessible, so in theory everyone can play it.

However, not playing with my friends the game got boring to me and I tired of it quickly. Perhaps because it’s not really a technical game and there’s not much strategy and tactics involved, at least compared to other sports games.

So as a “party-game” it’s a great choice, but apart from this I think the game is far too simplistic for long-term enjoyment.

I’m not sure what you mean by saying it’s not really a technical game?
I find that it’s a game which is easy to get into, but rather hard to master. It’s easy to muck around the ball at first, but if you want to start getting to the level of “i’m flying around in perfect control of my trajectory”, it’s quite difficult. And what I would call technical.

What sports games? Most sport games limit you mostly to two dimensions, RL happens in all 3 of them, if you think it’s not a technical game I advice you to go against a well skilled player 1v3 and watch as you don’t even get the opportunity to touch the ball as their control allows them to put it anywhere they want.

As for strategy, well there’s less of that for sure, it’s too fast paced really, but tactics on the other hand, not as much as say fifa for sure, but positioning is key to victory.

RL fanboy here: I have to massively disagree by an eye-wateringly astronomical amount. Rocket League is a great laugh as a new player because there is a simple joy in everyone pin-wheeling knocking the ball all over the shop but as you get better at it you realise that the skill ceiling is miles high. I’ve been playing the game for close on a year now and I remember thinking I was pretty good at it until I had the misfortune of stumbling across the rocket league page on Reddit and seeing things I hadn’t even conceived of being possible. The technical skills may appear simple on the surface but it masks many, many layers of complexity.

For me its probably the best sports game I’ve ever played AND the best party game. I’m not sure I’ve ever played a game that reflects so many of the skills used to actually play football – and that includes all football games. Its tremendous.

Its the way when you dribble you have to wait for an opponent to commit, the timing of the jump for headers, and the way that moving at speed helps you win the balls in the air. The way that its easier to react if you are already moving, swapping positions to cover another player, anticipating another players cross, anticipating when you are likely to concede so you can fall back to a more defensive position, deciding whether its best to rush out to meet the ball or hold your ground, the way you can throw yourself in the wat of shots. All of these things remind me of football, but either way, its a great game!

Count on it! I rather reluctantly bought it a couple of months after release due to all the praise here on RPS. I am neither interested in football nor in racing, game or real life, so I was expecting a let-down. 200 h later I can say, RL is up there with my top 3 MP games ever!

It’s a fun little game and I’m having a blast with it so far, during this free weekend. But I’m still not sure whether I want to buy it come monday – it’s one of THOSE games that you need to be slightly innebriated for, with Soundcloud mashups playing in the background and a big bowl of easy snackfood to be able to enjoy to the fullest.